WIPP hopes Congress includes money for needed maintenance in 2014

CARLSBAD >> Another year brings more facility repairs at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant, and its operators hope Congress grants the necessary funds this year to carry out the maintenance.

Leaders at the transuranic waste repository, about 27 miles east of Carlsbad, have targeted reconstruction of the North Access Road as key in a long list of necessary improvements this year, but if WIPP is not granted enough of a stipend for fiscal year 2014, it could cost more in the long run, officials say.

"This is reality the longer we wait to fix that road, the more it's going to cost because it's going to deteriorate worse," said Farok Sharif, the president and project manager of Nuclear Waste Partnership, LLC, that is contracted by the U.S. Department of Energy to oversee WIPP operations.

"We could have fixed it, for example, one or two years ago at about $500,000 a mile. Now it will cost us I believe more than $1 million a mile just because the base of that road has deteriorated."

WIPP requested $203.39 million from the DOE for Fiscal Year 2014 and Sharif said the latest estimate he heard from Sen. Tom Udall's office was around the $219 million mark.

"It's critical insofar as you are going to lose the opportunity and the capability of doing so many things," said James Conca, director for the Center of Laboratory Sciences on the campus of Columbia Basin College near the Hanford Site in Washington.

Conca previously worked at WIPP for a decade, from 2000 to 2010.

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"You want to expand (WIPP) but (shrinking the budget) kills opportunities so that's bad," he said. "You're pretty much shrinking your capability. When will your budget shrink to the point where you're hurting operations?"

Maintenance is never-ending at WIPP because of the corrosive nature of the salt found underneath the Permian Basin, the same reason that makes the facility great for storing the nation's TRU waste.

WIPP has been underfunded in the last few years according to Conca.

"WIPP is DOE's most successful program in its history It's ahead of schedule and under budget," Conca said.

"(Congress) piles on more responsibility but they cut the budget. That's the reward we get."

Should WIPP not receive at least the requested amount of $203.39 million, the facility will continue to operate normally and use its operating budget for required repairs.

"I guarantee you our facility is safe," Sharif said.

"We will not operate the facility if it is not safe. We will shut it down if it is not safe."

The list of repairs and upkeep performed last year at WIPP included repairing the roofs of two buildings, including the main office, installing two 6-ton cranes for waste transportation, refurbishing fans for the underground ventilation system, and beginning the process of repairing the facility's fire suppression system, according to Sharif.

Maintenance crews must dig below the surface, up to 25 feet on occasion, to get to the piping for the fire suppression system that has not been upgraded since 1988.